Savannah Sparrow | Passerculus sandwichensis

Voice

The song is a high, buzzy ditty: a few short ticks followed by two insect-like trills, like tsip tsip tsip tseeeee tsaaay; heard year-round from the resident birds. The call is a thin, high tseet.

Identification

11–15 cm. Small, with a short, notched tail and a fairly small, pointed bill. Head with a pale median crown-stripe, a supercilium that is yellow in front of the eye, a dark eye-stripe and a pale moustachial stripe with a dark malar stripe. Upperparts brown with dark streaks. Underparts white with narrow dark streaks on breast and flanks, often merging into a faint spot in the centre of the breast. Great variation between forms: birds of the salt marshes in the north-west are darker and more heavily streaked, while the forms around the Gulf of California are pale, show hardly any yellow and have a much heavier bill. The sexes are alike.

Confusion species

Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus is larger, has a white eye-ring and white outer tail feathers. Lincoln's Sparrow Melospiza lincolnii has a buff breast band with fine streaks, a grey supercilium and lives more in scrub. Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia is larger, with a longer, rounded tail, coarser streaks and no yellow. Grasshopper Sparrow Ammodramus savannarum has an unstreaked breast and a flat head with a large bill.

Habitat

Open grassland, semi-desert grassland, fields, stubble, pasture and roadsides; in the north-west also salt marsh, on the central plateau wet grassland and mountain meadows. It lives in loose flocks, walks and runs through short grass and when disturbed flies up low, usually to a spot further on in the grass or to a fence.

Range and movements

Breeds across much of North America, from Alaska and Canada into northern Mexico. Winters from the United States south through all of Mexico to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras; scarce further south. Resident forms live in the salt marshes of Baja California and Sonora, along the coast of the Gulf of California, on the central plateau of Mexico and in the highlands of Guatemala.

• Resident
• Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
• Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

In winter best found by walking along a grassy roadside or field edge; small sparrows that flush low and drop back into the grass are often Savannah Sparrows, and the yellow spot above the eye confirms the species.

Conservation status

Least Concern (LC). Very numerous, but in parts of North America it has declined through the loss of grassland. Some resident forms in the guide area have a small range and are vulnerable to the loss of salt marshes and wet grassland.

Scientific name

Passerculus sandwichensis | (Gmelin, 1789)

Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Emberiza sandwichensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Passerculus was introduced in 1838 by Bonaparte. Passerculus is Latin for 'little sparrow', a diminutive of passer 'sparrow'. sandwichensis refers to Sandwich Sound in Alaska (named after the Earl of Sandwich), where the first specimen was collected on Cook's third voyage; sources differ on exactly which place is meant. The specimen the first description was based on came from Unalaska, Alaska.